Contact

Speaker Available

Peter Coxhead (the Secretary) is available to give talks in return for travel expenses and a donation to the Society. See the list of talks available.

History

The Society was originally founded in 1919. It ceased to operate in the late 1930s, and was then refounded in 1951 by one of the former members, G Mantle Childe. For those interested, a brief history of the society is available in PDF format.

Recording and what the wasp was doing

Helconidea ruspator with Strangalia quadrifasciata, photographed during an outdoor meeting of the Society

This photograph was taken by Richard Saul during an outdoor meeting of the Society in Sutton Park. The wasp is a "braconid", a kind of parasitic wasp in the family Braconidae. There were no previous records of this family from Sutton Park, let alone the species itself. It was identified as Helconidea ruspator by Gavin Broad, a specialist at the Natural History Museum, London. Although there are about 1,000 species of braconid wasp in the British Isles, they are rarely recorded. The beetle that it seems to be following is a Four-striped Longhorn Beetle, Strangalia quadrifasciata, already recorded from the Park.

An 1889 publication describes H. ruspator being bred from a larva of S. quadrifasciata, so it's likely that the wasp is trying to lay its eggs in or near the beetle's eggs, so that its grubs can feed inside the beetle larvae as they grow.

Making records and sharing them with others is one of the ways in which the Society, along with other amateur naturalists, assists in the study of our native wildlife. If we don't know what is there, we can't work to conserve it.